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Unmanned Air Systems: The Future of Air & Sea Power?

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Unmanned Air Systems: The Future of Air & Sea Power? Focus Stratégique Paul ROGERS
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Since their early use for primitive ISR and combined operations, UAS have developed into increasingly multipurpose instruments performing a wide array of missions (from limited strike operations, search and monitoring to time-sensitive targeting) and offering new maneuver options to the armed forces. 

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These improvements in range, speed, endurance, situational awareness and payload, achieved through adaptive use of new information technologies, were catalyzed by the Afghanistan and Iraq testing grounds that proved critical in breaking institutional resistance.  Yet for all their contribution to the shaping of a quick learning curve, these developments have occurred in permissive airspace. After tracing back the history of UAS development, this paper argues that the US can overcome the different challenges to UAS brought by contested and denied airspace, as traditional power threats constrain force projection through A2AD strategies. To increase their force multiplier potential, the US will likely improve UAS capabilities in stealth, evasiveness, maneuverability and automation, strengthening both air and sea power.

 

Since their early use for primitive ISR and combined operations, UAS have developed into increasingly multipurpose instruments performing a wide array of missions (from limited strike operations, search and monitoring to time-sensitive targeting) and offering new maneuver options to the armed forces. These improvements in range, speed, endurance, situational awareness and payload, achieved through adaptive use of new information technologies, were catalyzed by the Afghanistan and Iraq testing grounds that proved critical in breaking institutional resistance. Yet for all their contribution to the shaping of a quick learning curve, these developments have occurred in permissive airspace. After tracing back the history of UAS development, this paper argues that the US can overcome the different challenges to UAS brought by contested and denied airspace, as traditional power threats constrain force projection through A2AD strategies. To increase their force multiplier potential, the US will likely improve UAS capabilities in stealth, evasiveness, maneuverability and automation, strengthening both air and sea power.Since their early use for primitive ISR and combined operations, UAS have developed into increasingly multipurpose instruments performing a wide array of missions (from limited strike operations, search and monitoring to time-sensitive targeting) and offering new maneuver options to the armed forces. These improvements in range, speed, endurance, situational awareness and payload, achieved through adaptive use of new information technologies, were catalyzed by the Afghanistan and Iraq testing grounds that proved critical in breaking institutional resistance. Yet for all their contribution to the shaping of a quick learning curve, these developments have occurred in permissive airspace. After tracing back the history of UAS development, this paper argues that the US can overcome the different challenges to UAS brought by contested and denied airspace, as traditional power threats constrain force projection through A2AD strategies. To increase their force multiplier potential, the US will likely improve UAS capabilities in stealth, evasiveness, maneuverability and automation, strengthening both air and sea pow
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978-2-36567-247-4

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Unmanned Air Systems: The Future of Air & Sea Power?

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 A soldier watching a sunset on an armored infantry fighting vehicle
Security Studies Center
Accroche centre

Heir to a tradition dating back to the founding of Ifri, the Security Studies Center provides public and private decision-makers as well as the general public with the keys to understanding power relations and contemporary modes of conflict as well as those to come. Through its positioning at the juncture of politics and operations, the credibility of its civil-military team and the wide distribution of its publications in French and English, the Center for Security Studies constitutes in the French landscape of think tanks a unique center of research and influence on the national and international defense debate.

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Date de publication
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Accroche

The evolving landscape of global defense cooperation has brought the transatlantic relationship between the United States (US) and Europe into sharp focus. As geopolitical tensions rise and the threat environment becomes more complex, the question of how Europe can best ensure its security while navigating its relationship with the United States has become paramount. This double feature report offers two contrasting views on the dynamics of US-Europe defense industrial relations, highlighting the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for both parties.

Jonathan CAVERLEY Ethan B. KAPSTEIN Élie TENENBAUM Léo PÉRIA-PEIGNÉ
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Deep Precision Strikes: A New Tool for Strategic Competition?

Date de publication
19 November 2024
Accroche

Reaching deep into the enemy’s system to weaken it and facilitate the achievement of operational or strategic objectives is a key goal for armed forces. What capabilities are required to conduct deep strikes in the dual context of high-intensity conflict and strengthened enemy defenses?

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From Cuba to Ukraine: Strategic Signaling and Nuclear Deterrence

Date de publication
03 December 2024
Accroche

Strategic signaling—the range of signs and maneuvers intended, in peace time, to lend credibility to any threat to use nuclear weapons—is back.

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Unmanned Air Systems: The Future of Air & Sea Power? Focus Stratégique Paul ROGERS
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Unmanned Air Systems: The Future of Air & Sea Power?